Healthy Lifestyles

The Benefits of Exercise

Evidence shows that regular exercise can:

• halve your risk of getting type 2 diabetes
• help to control diabetes and prevent long-term complications if you already have the condition
• halve your risk of developing coronary heart disease
• increase levels of HDL ('good' cholesterol)
• reduce high blood pressure
• promote bone density to protect against osteoporosis
• have beneficial effects if you have arthritis and lower back pain
• reduce your overall risk of cancer, prevent bowel cancer and reduce the risk of breast cancer in women after the menopause
• help to maintain a healthy weight in combination with a balanced diet
• reduce the risk of death or poor health if you're already overweight or obese
• reduce your risk of depression and dementia in later life
• treat depression
• help you to feel better about yourself and reduce stress
• improve your sleep
• help to promote healthy growth and development in children, as well as maintaining their energy balance, psychological wellbeing and social

Types of Physical Activity:

Choose something that you will enjoy doing. The key is that you aim to do at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity on five or more days of the week. The signs that you're doing moderate intensity activity are:

• an increase in your breathing rate
• an increase in your heart rate to a point where you can feel your pulse
• feeling warm

Moderate intensity physical activity such as brisk walking, or doing household chores such as painting, vacuuming and mowing the lawn, all count and are enough to benefit your health.

Examples of everyday activities that count include:

• walking up stairs instead of using lifts
• walking up moving escalators
• walking instead of driving for short journeys or getting off the bus one or two stops earlier than usual
• doing the housework at a quicker pace
• DIY and gardening

You can achieve your exercise target either by doing all the daily activity in one session or through several shorter bouts of activity of 10 minutes or more. You don’t have to run a marathon to increase your health through exercise!

You can include everyday activities or structured exercise or sport, or a combination of these. Adapt your weekly routine to fit in with your own personal circumstances - some ways of doing this are described below:

• Walk or cycle to work/school daily.
• Take all opportunities to be active - use the stairs, do manual tasks.
• Play a sport, go to the gym or go swimming two to three times during the week.
• At the weekend take longer walks, go for a bike ride, go swimming, play a team sport or do some DIY or gardening.

Children and young people need to do 60 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity every day. This should include at least two weekly activities that produce high physical stress on bones, such as dancing, jumping or aerobics. This is important for aiding their development.

Some ways in which children can include physical activity into their weekly lives are:

• Walking (if possible) to and from school every day.
• Be active at break-times at school, either at a school sports club or running around/playing with friends.
• Go to after school sports clubs and develop your skills as well as your fitness.
• At the weekend, taking longer walks, going to the park or swimming pool, or going for a bike ride. This is also a good opportunity for the whole family to enjoy exercising together.

Click here to take our Physical Activity Quiz

Click here for the answers to the Physical Activity Quiz

Click here to see our Healthy Lifestyles Presentation